The Residual Cigarette
by nuritacobarrubias
Summary: The Surgeon General warns that the addiction can seriously damage health.


Disclaimer: I'll swear 1013 times they aren't mine if it's necessary, but isn't that obvious?!

Time line: This takes place the first Monica Reyes scene ever. TINH. The first time we see her she's smoking and seems as though she's thinking and reflecting trapped in her own world. That made me think to…

A/N1: Thanks for your reviews on my first fic, they really help a lot. And please feel free to say anything you think, I'm always open to suggestions. (Thanks for yours again Kate.)

Once again JaneDoh, you rock.

A/N2 I used so many songs as inspiration, I won't disclaim them, it's really evident.

**XXX**

**THE RESIDUAL CIGARETTE**

"**I'm here, so please explain why you're opening up a healing wound again. …  
I think I better leave right now before I fall any deeper.**** I think I better leave right now, I'm feeling weaker and weaker" Will Young.**

"**And you, you, ****you who made worlds collide. I knew you'd come knocking one day,   
unannounced like a thief in the night. … So tell me how do you do, finally I meet you. You don't know what I've been through, waiting and wondering about you. I had a dream my trip would end at you and now I know paradise." Kings of Tomorrow  
**

**XXX**

At last, I'm finally alone. I was craving for a cigarette.

I can see a silver car stopping in the distance. He's gone to retrieve his current partner and his direct superior and try to introduce me properly, since I'm aware we're on a delicate case here.

As I'm taking an impulsive long puff out of my cigarette, I notice I'm slightly shaking my nervousness away.

_Just one more. One more before I quit._

After all these years I don't know what I really meant by that, well, yes, the addiction; that haunting feeling taking over me, getting the best of me.

I knew it wasn't beneficial for my health, or for those around me. I knew it wouldn't be considered appropriate behaviour for an FBI agent. I knew it was even frowned upon by the rest of the society. But still…I couldn't help it. I craved for it; I needed it.

I couldn't think straight until I got a little dose of indulgence for myself. My whole functional self lay in a shot.

When did all begin? Some time after Luke's death, as a way to escape the pain consuming me, consuming us. I found myself investigating so close to him the remaining traces of an impossible case, always keeping the faith that we could find the ultimate release, closure to uncertainty. The pieces of an awful puzzle escaped my mind, and my little vice was the only thing that could keep me from drowning into madness.

I know he became badly addicted too; he needed it more than I did. The chiaroscuro scenario enveloped us in a bad habit that managed to mask momentarily our graceless existences and roll bittersweet cigarettes as a penance.

It became our ritualistic escapade from this cruel world, from the hell we were both enduring. It was as though at those blissful moments, nothing else in the world mattered to us. The vice in question, my greatest addiction - his greatest addiction: our nights together.

His wife had already left him adrift long ago. He was lost, without direction. I was his lighthouse on dark nights.

The glory that his hell unwittingly led us to haunted me all through those gloomy luminous nights. All we wanted then was body melting, soul comforting and spirit healing. We would turn grief into grace with our brushing skins and silent cries of dull aching pleasure. We would stop time, deter the world from spinning, if only for a while.

It started on one dark, lonely night - almost unconsciously, automatically, just an accident. But…what's sex if not an expression? Like art, a recreation of yourself. Emotion in motion.

The stormy stillness our lovemaking created, emanated a bittersweet lament of provisional peace and serenity, leaving our limp bodies flying like heavy feathers on the breeze.

I soon found myself trapped; I couldn't stray away from him even if I tried. It had gotten beneath my skin, all the way down to the bones. It was hard to let go, but it had to be that way. I now know the problem wasn't meeting him, the problem was forgetting him. And it's still the same, how do I now get him out of my system if I ain't got him in the first place? Oblivion won't take his still lain shadow away from beneath my sheets.

Now I'm standing here, after all these years, on this little hill in Oregon; chasing and hunting ghosts with him again. Time seems to march on never ending; it seems as though we are standing right at the beginning, chasing our tails in a vicious circle. This time I won't make the same mistakes over and over again, no, I won't. I'll remain distant, at arms length. I don't want to succumb to his delighting poison again. I'll be unruffled and impassive; I won't let all crumble and fall.

I've got my determination settled, but as he approaches me with the red-head agent and calls my name, I discreetly stomp a residual cigarette out with my shoe and when I look into his starry eyes, I can't help thinking,

_Just one more, one more before I quit._

**XXX**

"**Nothing comes easily, fill this empty space. Nothing is like it was, turn my grief to grace. … Nothing can bring me peace; I've lost everything. I just want to feel your embrace." Kate Havnevik**

"**I need some distraction, ****oh beautiful release. … It's easier to believe in this sweet madness, this glorious sadness that brings me to my knees. … In the arms of an angel, fly away from here; from this dark cold hotel room and the endlessness that you fear. … You're in the arms of the angel, may you find some comfort here." ****Sarah McLachlan**

**XXX**

A/N3 As 'cataclysmiic' said in the fic "May You Find Some Comfort Here", I think D&R's angst is beautiful and awful at the same time too. And thanks to the fact that we never knew what happened exactly in the past we can have it all the ways we want it. Here I was trying a dark, more physical part of their relationship.

A/N4: "Emotion in motion", such a wonderful reflection of one of the best writers of fanfiction of all the fandoms (I'm not the one who gave her that rang,) and another wonderful beta I have on the other fandom I'm in. TrinTtlg. This is my little tribute to her. I have such luck with my betas!!


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